The present invention relates to a label printer and in particular but not exclusively to a tape printing device for printing an image on a tape.
Known tape printing apparatus of the type with which the present invention is concerned are disclosed in EP-A-322918 and EP-A-322919 (Brother Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha) and EP-A-267890 (Varitronic). The printers each include a printing device having a cassette receiving bay for receiving a cassette or tape holding case. An EP-A-26890, the tape holding case houses an ink ribbon and a substrate tape, the latter comprising an upper image receiving layer secured to a backing layered by an adhesive. In EP-A-32218 and EP-A-322919, the tape holding case houses an ink ribbon, a transparent image receiving tape and a double sided adhesive tape which is secured at one of its adhesive coated sides to the image tape after printing and which has a backing layer peelable from its other adhesive coated side. With both these apparatus, the image transfer medium (ink ribbon) and the image receiving tape (substrate) are in the same cassette.
It has also been proposed by the present applicants in, for example, EP-A578372 to house the ink ribbon and the substrate tape in separate cassettes.
In all of these cases, the image receiving tape passes in overlap with the ink ribbon to a print zone consisting of a fixed print head and a platen (or vice versa) against which the print head can be pressed to cause an image to transfer from the ink ribbon to the image receiving tape. There are many ways of doing this, including dry lettering or dry film impression, but the most usual way currently is by thermal printing where the print head is heated and the heat causes ink from the ink ribbon to be transferred to the image receiving tape.
The edit buffers of known printers store one long line of characters relating to a single label. The edit buffers stores characters as they are input by a user and in known tape printers stores only the current label. However the edit buffer is generally much longer than the average label. For example, one known edit buffer is able to accommodate 70 characters.
However, for certain applications the average label is between 5 to 15 characters. This has the disadvantage that this is not a particularly efficient use of the memory space provided by the edit buffer.
In some uses, a tape printer is used to print the same labels over a period of time. For example a user""s name, company name, address, project name, foodstuff for storage or the like may be printed regularly. Memory functions may be provided to store commonly used labels. However, the procedure for storing labels is often relatively complicated and may deter some users from making use of the memory facility. The procedure for recalling the correct label may be time consuming particularly where a number of labels are stored. A further disadvantage is that additional memory space would need to be provided for this storage function. If no memory function is provided, the user has to enter and delete the same labels over and again as only one label can exist in the tape printer at the same time.
It is an aim of embodiments of the present invention to address particularly the problem mentioned above in relation to recalling and displaying correct labels, particularly but not exclusively where display space is limited.
According to the present invention there is provided a label printer for printing a label, the printer comprising:
input means for inputting data defining labels to be printed;
storage means for storing a plurality of labels, labels being separated in said storage means by label indicators;
selection means for selecting at least one of said labels to be displayed at a display of the label printer; and
means for controlling only said selected label to be displayed in dependence on the location of label indicators defining the limits of said selected label.
Preferably the selected label is displayed by scrolling the text of the label from right to left across the display such that a user can read the entire label even where display space is limited.
An additional view function can be provided whereby all of the labels in said storage means are displayed by scrolling in a direction from right to left across the display, notwithstanding the label indicators.
According to another aspect of the invention there is provided a method of displaying contents of a label memory which holds a plurality of labels, the method comprising:
selecting one of said labels at a display;
detecting a first label indicator in the label memory and commencing a scrolling operation at said first label indicator to scroll the contents of the label from right to left across the display; and
terminating the scrolling operation on detection of a subsequent label indicator defining the end of the selected label.
According to another aspect of the present invention there is provided a label printer for printing a label, said printer comprising input means for inputting labels to be printed memory means for storing a plurality of labels, said memory means being arranged to store said labels as said labels are input; selection means for selecting at least one of said labels to be printed; and printing means for printing said at least one selected label.